American Express had built its reputation as a prestigious charge card. In 1976 the company began its famed ‘‘Do You Know Me?’’ campaign in which celebrities ranging from dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov to puppeteer Jim Henson appeared in ads that pictured them and an AmEx Green Card bearing their names. In 1987 the ‘‘Portraits’’ campaign followed a similar formula. By aligning the brand with stars, AmEx cultivated the notion that carrying one of its cards was more akin to joining an elite country club than making a financial transaction. As later ads sniffed, ‘‘membership has its privileges.’’ In the 1980s, however, AmEx’s careful positioning began to backfire. According to Brandweek, while AmEx ‘‘clung to its old, elite ways,’’ the credit card industry went through monumental changes. With so many cards vying for consumers’ attention, Visa and MasterCard (specifically, the member banks that comprised the Visa and MasterCard consortia) began to cross-market Continue reading
Management Case Studies
Management case studies are real-life examples of issues and problems found in particular workplaces or business organisations. Case study assignments give the opportunity to relate theoretical concepts to practical situations. Most case studies are written in such a way that the reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to leave the situation as it is and do nothing.
Case Study of Procter & Gamble: Marketing of Scope Mouthwash
Scope was introduced in 1967 by Procter & Gamble, is a green mint tasting mouthwash, and was positions as a great tasting mouth refreshing brand that provided bad breath protection. Scope held 32% share of the Canadian market for 1990. In 1970 Scope became the market leader in Canada, with many competitors, such as Listerine mouthwash that was launched by Warner Lambert in 1977 and it was a direct competitor to Scope, it had nearly the same characteristics as Scope with a 12% of the market share during that time. But the major competitor for Scope was Plax, a brand by Pfizer Inc, which was launched in Canada in 1988 on a platform quite different from the traditional mouthwashes, and gained a 10% share since launched. Plax detergents were supposed to help loosen plaque to make brushing effective. Before the entry of Plax, brands in the mouth wash market were Continue reading
Case Study of Zara: A Better Fashion Business Model
Zara is one of the most well known brands in the world and is also one of the largest international fashion companies. They are the third largest brand in the garment industry and are a unit of Inditex. It their flagship range of chain stores and are headquartered in Spain. Zara opened its first outlet in Spain in 1975. The headquarters of the company is based in Galicia. There are more than 2600 stores across 73 countries in the world. The Zara clothing line accounts for a huge bulk of its parent group’s revenues. There are other clothing brands owned by Inditex such as Kiddy ´s Class (children’s fashion), Pull and Bear (youth casual clothes), Massimo Dutti (quality and conventional fashion), Bershka (avant-garde clothing), Stradivarius (trendy garments for young woman), Oysho (undergarment chain) and Zara Home (household textiles). Inditex owns all Zara outlets except for places where they are not Continue reading
Case Study: The “More Doctors Smoke Camels” Campaign
Camel is an American cigarette type possessed and industrialized by the Reynolds Tobacco Enterprise and contains a mixture of Turkish and Virginia tobacco. Many surgeons prefer Camel cigarettes to any other brand. One way used by the tobacco industry to comfort a vexed community was by including attractive images of doctors in advertisements. The argument was that if a physician with all due proficiency smokes a specific brand, the cigarettes cannot be harmful to human health. The main target of image advertisement is to publicize and create awareness of a product to ensure that the item is highly purchased for the company to make high profits. Image advertisement is preferred because it is affordable and easy to reach many viewers, and creates a wider reach of the product by the public, unlike video advertising. Image advertisement of Camel cigarettes was effective for society and the company. Since Camels are harmless Continue reading
Case Study of General Electric: Six Sigma Implementation
General Electric, one of the most successful companies implementing Six Sigma, has estimated benefits on the order of $10 billion during the first five years of implementation. GE first began Six Sigma in 1995 after Motorola and Allied Signal blazed the Six Sigma trail. Since then, thousands of companies around the world have discovered the far reaching benefits of Six Sigma, including Japan’s Taiichi Ohno used as a model for the Toyota Production System (TPS), did not let him down during bad economic times. An Overview of Six Sigma Motorola coined the term “Six Sigma” and created the original formulas in the 1980’s. The result was a culture of quality that permeated throughout Motorola and led to a period of unprecedented growth and sales. The crowning achievement was being recognized with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Motorola factory that manufactured television sets in the United States, took over by Continue reading
Case Study on Ethics: The Google Antitrust Case
Google Inc. started two decades ago as a Silicon Valley startup with an innovative way of accessing the Internet. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, and came into the business world in 1997, one year after it was established with its shares offered to the public in 2004 in the most unusual online way. Currently, Google is one of the search engines that are frequently used around the world, which has enabled the company to further raise its market share. The main product of Google is the search engine, which has enabled it to have global dominance. In addition, the company has other products such as Google Maps., Chrome Browser, Google Drive, YouTube, Play Store, Gmail, and the Android operating system. However, it is worth noting most of the above-named products are offered free of charge to Google users, but customers have to pay to access premium product features. Continue reading